


Someone Like Noah

by vibrant_pastel



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 05:37:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10483245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibrant_pastel/pseuds/vibrant_pastel
Summary: It's hard being colorblind.It's even harder with a name like Gray.The teasing is doubled, you can't match your clothes, and friends are few and far between. Things are better when you meet someone like Noah, though.Things are a lot better.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Not really making this story for public, it's more of just something I'm writing for myself and happens to be in the public eye. So if you like it, awesome, if you don't, it won't kill me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just the prologue

Prologue

 

Being colorblind is tough.  
Being colorblind and having the name "Gray" is even tougher. It's not so bad when you have someone like him, though. Someone to hold you when you cry. Someone to make everyone stop saying "you are what you see" and "what color is this?" Someone like Noah.  
Yeah, someone like Noah.

Mom had protanopia, while dad had rod monochromacy. They didn't even know the other was living through a colorless world until after she was pregnant with their first, Gray. "He may or may not be colorblind" were the words Ray spoke to Jackie, upon finding out the gender of their six-months-in-the-womb baby. It was practically written into the stars once they decided on the name "Gray" that he would most definitely be colorblind. As for the four boys and girls that followed, all had some form of the deficiency. The two boys were both cursed with the unfortunate monochromacy, while the first little girl, Georgia, only got protanopia like her mother. As for the youngest girl, she too was ill-fated with monochromacy. A colorless world awaited them.

However, they all grew up as happy, playful children, despite the lack of pigment they viewed on their planet. It did not hurt them; it only cause a hindrance to their lives. There were very few things they needed help with growing up that their parents could not help with. Matching clothes, color coding plant anatomy for biology, needing a red binder for maths class, and even their parents needed help for things such as painting their house. Yet despite all this they were a happy family. Everything and everybody seemed cheerful, except for one child in particular. Gray.

Gray's parents had noticed his more downtrodden state even as a child. Everything was done to make him happier. They wanted to lift his spirits and form him into the happy, smiling child they longed for. Figuring he was lonely, they decided to have baby number two; Charlie. Charlie was born right on April Fool's Day. He proved to be the goofball of the family later on. Light brown curls sprung from his head (though he would never know what color they were), freckles spotted his pale complexion, and a toothy smile never left the boys face. Gray and him got along fine being only two years apart, but Gray was still downcast. In efforts to lift the boys mood further more, they had kids three four and five: Georgia, Seth, and Emma. All kids lacked the ability to see color.

One would believe that four siblings is more than enough to not be lonely anymore. Unfortunately, Gray was still, however, in the same depressed and lonesome state he was years ago. At nine years old, his parents finally decided to question the young boy about his negative moods.

"It's hard to be happy when the rest of the world isn't," was his reply.

What does a parent say to their child after that? Apologize? For what? For passing on genes? The rest of his siblings were as happy as a color blind child could be; it was only Gray who was severely unhappy. He was enrolled in school after school, sport after sport, daycare after daycare in attempts to let him find a friend. Finally, after years and years of trying to make him happy, fate stepped in. It was time for a change.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter one, here we go...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sections in chapters will start with a name in all caps, such as GRAY. This simply means that the following section is in Grays point of view.

GRAY

If I had to choose a day to live in forever, it'd be August 15, 2004. The end of summer was near, and I hadn't done anything besides volunteer at the animal shelter for the past two and a half months. When you have no friends, you have no plans. I needed to do something. Something fun. Fortunately, Charlie was still complaining about not being able to go to the teen music festival downtown because he had no one to take him. He's only thirteen, so that's a no-go to walking alone. I would have to take him if he wanted to go, and introverts don't like festivals. Or malls. Or stores, or parks, or the general public. But I needed somewhere to go and a reason to go, so the festival it was.

I'm not even a big music fan. Charlie's the musician of the family. I just needed to go somewhere so my summer wasn't a total waste (although I did get quite a lot of dogs adopted). A squeaky voice piped up from the den; it was Georgia. "Gray's leaving the house to go somewhere other than the animal shelter?" Charlie laughed at this and nodded, but fixed his face once he saw mine. "We're going to the music festival. I've been wanting to go all week. Last thing before school starts back up." He tries to sound cool, but that's hard when you sound identical to your 10 year old sister. "Does this match, Georgia?"

Charlie turned to Georgia and motioned to his outfit. It looked black and white to us. "You're just wearing a black shirt with off-white shorts. You can see that."  
They argued over this for a while, him saying he wouldn't know the difference and her saying it's not hard. It stopped once I opened the door and Charlie bolted in front of me, his curls bouncing on his head. "Bye, George. Watch the twins while we're gone." Charlie slammed the door just in time to barely hear her get mad over the nick name.

I had debated bringing Abbey, my service dog for my panic attacks and anxiety since we'd be in a packed place, but I'd be getting stopped every two minutes to let someone pet her. So I'd be getting the opposite help If I brought her. Besides, I had Charlie.

We could hear the music from our house, even though we had to walk about ten minutes to get to town. By the time we arrived, Charlie was long gone with some of his friends. That left me time to myself.

Wandering around the festival reminded me that living things other than animals existed. Humans to be exact. Big ones, small ones, dark ones, light ones- I sound like I'm describing the dogs again.

Ugh, I need to get out more.

There were stands and tables advertising snacks, drinks, CD's of the performers, t shirts, bracelets, and more. I bought Georgia a leather string bracelet from a hippie with dreads as a thank you for watching the twins. They're a handful. No sooner had it been that I handed dreads-lady the money that I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a girl from the shelter; she just adopted a cat a few weeks back. "Hey, what's up? Long time no see."

And this is why I'm an introvert. People think that if you talk to them once for a ten minute period that you're automatically buddy-buddy. Those ten minutes were only me getting her to sign papers and letting her know about the cats medication anyways. Nowhere near a full fledged conversation. But since I was out, I decided I might as well be friendly as to not make myself look lonely.

"Pretty good. How's the cat?"

She seemed disappointed that I'd chosen the cat as the topic of conversation, but continued anyways. "Oh, he's great. Not on medication anymore; his eye's all clear now. How's your dog?"

I take Abbey to the shelter with me. She's trained and gets along with the other dogs, and can even help me walk them. "She's good," I said. "Still wagging her tail. Or, nub, I guess. Australian Shepherd." The girl nodded, but seemed to have no interest in what kind of dog Abbey was. Her gaze was focused on dreads-lady's hair. "What do you think, should I dye my hair that shade of blue, something lighter, or maybe a purple? We're in high school now, which means exotic hair!"

Her smile was bright, and I guess she wanted her hair to match. _Does she not know I have no idea what "blue" or "purple" even is? Must be new here._ I pretended to look from the dreads to her, before telling her blue. She seemed happy. We said our goodbyes (more of me saying I had to find my brother and practically running away) and I was once again swallowed into the crowd of teens. I had really started regretting not bringing Abbey. I could feel my adrenaline begin to rush from the crowd. My mind wanted me to keep going, to look around and suck it up, but my emotions told me otherwise. It was time to leave.

How was I supposed to find Charlie among these thousands of people? California is crowded; especially when it's having teen-based festivals. Granted we live in Fresno and not Los Angeles, but it's still crowded. And my 5'5'' stature didn't help in the sea of 6' guys. Plenty of guys have curly hair too, so I had nothing to single Charlie down to to ask people if they've seen him. Not like I had the social skills to actually talk to people, but it's a good thought.

Panic started setting in. When would I found him? Would I find him? What if I didn't? What if he decided to smoke something with his friends? What if it was laced with some kind of acid and he died? What if I dive of a panic attack? What if, what if, what if...

I raced frantically around the festival, trying to find him. People gave me strange looks; my anxiety rose. I started getting dizzy. The black hues mixed with the gray, white faded into black, and it all became a gray blur. There was a bench not too far ahead. My butt hit the seat, my elbows hit my knees, and my head was buried in my hands. I felt my hair getting tugged; it was by my own hands. I needed Abbey. IneedAbbeyIneedAbbeyIneedAbbey. My mind was gone, and I was on the verge of passing out. But then, I saw something. Right out of the corner of my left eye. I barely saw it, but boy am I glad I caught it. 

 

A dot. An orb. A circle. A sphere. Whatever it was, it was  _glowing._

 

The scariest thing?  _It wasn't black. Or white. Or gray._ All memories of feeling panicked, dizzy and scared left. Because I was looking at something I had never seen before. It moved. It had color. It had color! What color was it? I didn't know. It was moving around, left to right, over in the distance of the crowd. I turned around and looked around to see if anyone else saw this colored orb floating round. No one. Only I saw this mystery. Was I hallucinating? Hallucinating so much that I actually saw color?

I was so awestruck, it took me a moment before I realized that not only was this colored ball of light moving slightly left and right, it was moving farther away.

My feet hit the ground with a start, and I took off running through the packed crowd. Pushing, shoving, scooting, "excuse me"'s, whatever it took to get to that, that _thing._ It began to get larger as I approached it. Closer, closer, closer, so close it was practically there. I thought I had reached it, it was right in front of me, I could have grabbed it, but someone got in my way. It disappeared into a colored cloud as I ran full force into someone at least six inches taller than me. My small frame fell to the ground, while his stayed upright. He turned around in surprise; his dark eyes stared at me with a slight expression of worry. "Oh my god, are you alright? What the heck happened there?"

He bent down almost to a sumo squat and helped me up. Dark hair fell into his eyes; his eyes matched his hair. I rubbed the back of my head. It was wet. When I pulled my hand away and glanced at it, I realized I must've hit it hard to make it bleed. The guy pulled two napkins out of his pocket. One was placed into my hand, while he took it upon himself to clean up the back of my head which was now very bloody. "Let me know if I'm hurting you," he said. I've never heard a voice that deep, unless you count tv characters. A familiar squeaky voice sounded to my right.

"Gray! What happened? Are you okay? We need to get home. Barry, can you drive?" It was Charlie. "I don't have room in my car. My drums are in the back."

"It's fine, Charlie. Really, I can walk." I wheezed. I still had the wind knocked out of me. The taller guy finished cleaning up my head, and moved my face to look me in the eyes. "Not a chance, dude. My sister can drive you home. Is that your brother? He can come, too. Let's go." As I looked up, I then noticed the ridiculously tall girl standing next to my stranger savior. Hair and eyes matching his, with an equally similar slim figure. She led us over to her pale blue buggy. Charlie sat with her in the front, only because the man who I still didn't know the name of insisted I sat with him.

Charlie told the girl, who we learned to be named Elle, directions to our house. It took no time before we got there. Elle stayed in the car, while Charlie opened both the car door and front door. Mister Tall Man did not leave my side and held the bloody napkin on my head until we got into the house. I had yet to muster up the guts to ask his name. Georgia and the twins were too mesmerized by the tv to see us come in, but Abbey was more than attentive. I could tell she smelled blood. She's not used to guests, especially not guests who are touching me. That mixed with the blood scent let a low growl aimed towards Mister Tall emerge from her throat. I made the hand motion for her to stop barking and to heel. She immediately stopped and came to my side.

"He's trained," said the friendly stranger.

"She, and she's a service dog." I said. She stayed by my side and didn't inspect our visitor until I let her. Before I gave her the signal, Mister Tall Man led me over to the sink and dropped the napkin in the trash. He wet a nearby rag and gave it to me. "Thanks," I smiled. He smiled back. "No problem." I sat onto the couch next to Seth and Emma while he washed my blood from his hands. The twins still paid no attention to the stranger in our house. He then stood in the middle of the room, hands in pockets.  Abbey was looking at me, waiting for permission to meet the new person in the house.  I gave her the signal. She immediately ran over and began to sniff. "Hey there, pretty girl. You gonna take care of him when I leave?" He said, smiling down at her and glancing up to me. "She's beautiful. What's her name?"

"Abbey."

"Abbey. Nice name for a nice dog." He continued petting her, but looked at me. "You need me to stay, or are you gonna be alright?" He asked. Very considerate for someone who just washed your blood off of their hands. "I can tell Elle to pick me up later if you need me." I smiled at the kind gesture. "Thanks, really, but I think I'll be good. I've got her, anyways." I motioned to Abbey, who obediently came to my side. He nodded. He seemed resistant to leave. "I'll see you around, then?" The dark eyebrows went up in a hopeful expression. "I'm at the animal shelter every day from nine to three."

He smiled. "I'll see If Elle or my grandma can take me. Sound good?" I nodded yet again; i felt like a bobble head. "Sounds good. Thanks for everything. I really appreciate it." He gave me another 'no problem' and headed out the door. The door hadn't even closed all the way before he bolted back in. "I never caught your name. What was it?"

I laughed. "Gray," I said through a chuckle. "And you?"

"I'm Noah. It was nice meeting you, Gray."


End file.
